Children Helping Others: 3 Ways to Serve at Easter time

We love for our children to focus on others more than themselves and to seek out ways to help those around them. Easter is a holiday that we love to celebrate.

My son is usually really excited about what he’s going to “get” from the Easter bunny, so this year we decided to focus less on the getting and more on the giving at Easter time.

As a family we decided to participate in three simple Easter service activities over the next few weeks. The projects focus on giving in the community, to our friends, and then also serving one another in our family!

1. Make Easter Bunny Hats for local NICU babies (pictured above)

This is a project that we’ve done for the past two years. It is one that works best for older elementary and middle school students. A friend works in the NICU at a local hospital and gives us the baby hats each year. We purchase pink and white felt to make the bunny ears.

Materials Needed: felt, fabric scissors, hot glue guns, baby hats

Directions:

Cut a cardboard bunny ear template (inner and outer ear). We just simple hand draw these to make sure they fit that hat size.

Cut around the templates to make two large white ears and two smaller pink inner ear pieces.

Glue the pink piece on top of the white piece and then glue both ears to the top of the hats.

Although my kids didn’t get to physically help with this project, they joined us last week when we organized a group of 10 teenage girls to help us make these cute hats. I think watching others participate in service projects is a great way to help expose them to how good it feels to help others. The girls had a blast and my kids had fun hanging out with them eating snacks. They also liked trying on one of the hats.

2. You’ve Been Egged!

This idea is new to me, but I’ve seen it several places on Pinterest, so we definitely had to try it!

Basically, you fill up loads of plastic Easter eggs with treats (or other items) and make some little signs that say, “You’ve been Egged.” Then you go hide the plastic eggs all over a friend’s front yard and leave a little note telling them they’ve been egged!

We decided to create some little eggs with paint and paper to stick all over their doors too.

3. Twelve Acts of Secret Service

Work with your family to write acts of service on little strips of paper and then stick them inside the plastic eggs and sealed them shut.

Have a family member choose an egg each day (or several times a day) during the week before Easter. Help the child read the note and then perform that act of service for another family member secretly!

Doing secret service is so fun!

Here are some ideas of secret services you or your kids could perform…

take the trash out

make sibling’s bed

clean the toilet

leave a little love note in a sibling’s lunch or shoe

“egg” a child or parent’s bedroom door (with paper eggs)

sweep the floor

clear the table

clean up a sibling’s bedroom

bring in the mail

buy a special treat and leave it on a sibling’s bed

check out a new (desired) book for a sibling at the library

write a lunch note for dad

fill up your husband’s car with gas

buy a favorite snack

What else would you add?

Little ones can work together with older siblings or parents to do their acts of service.

Do you have any other suggestions of ways that your family could serve others at Easter time?

Kristina is a mom of two (a preschooler and a toddler) and a former Special Education teacher for children with communication disabilities. She writes about her creative explorations over at Toddler Approved. Her goal is to find ways to make life a little more fun and creative with her kids while embedding learning into everything that she does. Kristina tweets as @ToddlerApproved and can be found on FB and Pinterest.